Hashtag Jakarta EE #220

Welcome to issue number two hundred and twenty of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

Jakarta EE 11 is entering a new phase with release reviews of the component specifications starting. We will also release a milestone build (Milestone 2) of the Platform, Web Profile, and Core Profile specifications shortly.

Release Review in progress:
Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection 4.1
Jakarta Expression Language 6.0

Release Review about to start:
Jakarta Interceptors 2.2
Jakarta Annotations 3.0

It has been a couple of weeks since I last traveled anywhere, but now it starts again. I will speak at the Belgium JUG in Hasselt on Tuesday, March 19. My talk there will be about what to expect from Jakarta EE 11. As usual, there will be a live demo. This time, the demo may be a bit more exciting than usual since I have upgraded to MacOS 14.4 already (see the next section for why). Anyway, I am looking forward to meeting friends in the Belgian Java Community, and hopefully, there will be fries…

Oracle announced yesterday that macOS 14.4 introduced an issue with Java on Apple silicon that can cause Java processes to terminate unexpectedly. Read the full announcement for more details. Since I always keep my system up-to-date and install all updates as soon as they are released, both my MacBooks may have this problem. I haven’t noticed anything yet, and maybe the applications I usually run aren’t affected. I am pretty sure that Apple will provide a fix for this fairly quickly. If you haven’t updated to 14.4 yet, I would wait until that fix is available.

Devnexus will happen in Atlanta April 9-11. This is the premier Java conference in the US and is definitely the place to be at that time. The speaker lineup is amazing, and the schedule is packed with world-class sessions along with social activities. There will also be an entire track dedicated to Jakarta EE as well as the opportunity to attend the Jakarta EE Workshop with Ken Fogel and myself.

Use the promo code DN24-ESF to get a 20% discount on any Devnexus pass.

Hashtag Jakarta EE #219

Welcome to issue number two hundred and nineteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

After intense deliberations and discussions, it is now settled that Jakarta RESTful Web Services will release a 4.0 release that will be part of Jakarta EE 11. The vote for the revised plan is still going on in the Jakarta EE Specification Committee, but with 7 +1s so far it will pass its review no matter what the remaining three votes are.

All specifications expected to be ready for Milestone 2 of Jakarta EE 11 met the target. The material for the release reviews is currently being verified by Jakarta EE Specification Committee members before the ballots open for the release reviews.

Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection 4.1
Jakarta Interceptors 2.2
Jakarta Expression Language 6.0
Jakarta Annotations 3.0

The schedule for Devnexus 2024 has been published. Check out the amazing lineup here! I also want to point you to the Jakarta EE track in particular. We are repeating the success from last year with an entire track dedicated to Jakarta EE. I hope to see you all there!

Hashtag Jakarta EE #218

Welcome to issue number two hundred and eighteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

We are currently entering the release review stage of Jakarta EE 11. Since we are releasing no less than four milestones of this release, the individual component specifications will be reviewed and released in stages. This is different from previous releases, where the Specification Committee reviewed all specifications in a big chunk. You can check out the progress of the reviews by checking out the pull requests labeled release review in the Specifications GitHub repository.

I have a lot of events coming up in the following months. You can get the full overview at the Developer Advocate pages on the Jakarta EE website. I update the list continuously as responses from CFPs I have submitted abstracts to are sent out.

I appreciate absolutely all conferences I am found worthy of speaking at and I give them all as much buzz as possible in social media and blog posts before, during, and after the event. One of the conferences I am speaking at this year is Spring I/O. I have heard only good things about this conference, and look very much forward to my first appearance as a speaker there with a talk titled Why Spring Matters to Jakarta EE – and Vice Versa.

Here is my follow-up to my post on X last week. I recommend that everyone check out Rodrigo’s Weekend Reading List to keep up-to-date on things going on in the Java Community.

Hashtag Jakarta EE #217

Welcome to issue number two hundred and seventeen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

I am now on my way home after a week in North America where I spoke at Philly JUG and ConFoo, my second tour overseas this year. The upcoming month will be dedicated to Europe. First up is Malmö JUG on February 29. Then I will go to Hasselt in Belgium for the Belgian JUG on March 19 (event to be announced), and finally Voxxed Days Bucharest from March 27 to March 29.

Milestone 2 of Jakarta EE 11 is coming up shortly. The plan is to have it released at the beginning of March after the release reviews of the component specifications included are started. Check out the Jakarta EE 11 Release Plan for details.

While waiting for Jakarta EE 11, why not test out your skills with Jakarta EE 10 and participate in the second edition of the Payara Hackathon? If an opportunity to play with cool technology isn’t motivation enough, then look at the prices. You can win up to £3000. Yes, you got that right! 3000 British Pounds!

Hashtag Jakarta EE #216

Welcome to issue number two hundred and sixteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

I’m back from my vacation and I am ready to roll again. This week, I will cross the pond to speak at PhillyJUG on Tuesday before continuing to Montreal and ConFoo 2024 for the remainder of the week.

As I mentioned last week, the Jakarta EE Platform project plans to deliver four milestones of Jakarta EE before the final release. Milestone 2 planned for March 2024 is fast approaching and the individual component specifications that are expected to be a part of this milestone are scrambling together the final bits and pieces to be ready for their releases.

Since I have been more or less off the grid the last week, I don’t have much more this week. Take a look at the minutes from the weekly Jakarta EE Platform call to stay up-to-date on the discussions going on.

Hashtag Jakarta EE #215

Welcome to issue number two hundred and fifteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

This week I started with a trip to Jfokus 2024 in Stockholm. Directly after that, I began a week of vacation, meaning I am diving in the Red Sea while you are reading this.

The Jakarta EE Platform project will use milestones as a part of the release plan for Jakarta EE 11. The planned milestones for Jakarta EE 11 are:
– Milestone 1: December, 2023
– Milestone 2: March, 2024
– Milestone 3: April, 2024
– Milestone 4: May, 2024

The goal is that some of the component specifications will be ready for release review for each milestone. Which component specifications that are expected in each milestone are specified in the Jakarta EE 11 release plan. After the last milestone, there should only be the Jakarta EE Platform, Jakarta EE Web Profile, and Jakarta EE Core Profile specifications left.

It is the first time we are using Milestones for a Jakarta EE release. Hopefully, it will turn out to be a good idea that will help us complete the release as planned in June/July this year.

Hashtag Jakarta EE #214

Welcome to issue number two hundred and fourteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

I arrived back home from my January JUG Tour with visits to the JCP 25-Year Anniversary Party, Nashville JUG, Seattle JUG, and Portland JUG yesterday. But no rest for the brave. Already tomorrow, I am traveling to Stockholm for Jfokus 2024.

My talk is scheduled for Tuesday at 16:00 and is titled Prepare for Jakarta EE 11 with the subtitle Performance and Developer Productivity. In this talk, I give an update on what to expect from Jakarta EE 11 with demos of some of the features that are ready, or near to ready.

Talking about Jakarta EE 11, the Jakarta EE Platform project has decided to support Java SE 17 in addition to Java SE 21. This will allow for more adoption, especially for the compatible implementations of the individual component specifications. At the same time, vendors that have started working on their implementation based on Java SE 21 will be able to continue that journey. There is no requirement that they must certify their products on Java SE 17 in addition to Java SE 21.

If you want to learn more about this, come to my talk at Jfokus on Tuesday!

Hashtag Jakarta EE #213

Welcome to issue number two hundred and thirteen of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

This week continued with discussions around Java versions. The latest update is that the Jakarta EE Specification Committee wants to do a Progress Review of the planned Jakarta EE 11 release. This is all according to the Jakarta EE Specification Process (JESP), so there is really no drama about that part. The Jakarta EE Platform Project will present its plan, and the Specification Committee will vote to approve it. While this is happening, the work with the release will progress as planned.

However, there is a potential bump in the road if the ballot does not pass. This will force the Platform Project to come up with a revision of the plan (a Plan C if you will) that will satisfy the Specification Committee. The outcome of that plan may, or may not, impact the release date of Jakarta EE 11.

While the focus is currently on the next version of Jakarta EE, there is also a need to look ahead to what will happen beyond Jakarta EE 11. To accommodate this, the Jakarta EE Working Group has put together a document to brainstorm this topic. Please take a look at it and provide input. The topic that attracts my immediate attention is a potential Jakarta AI Specification, something I also mentioned in Hashtag Jakarta EE #309 on December 31 last year.

I am currently in Nashville preparing for my first JUG Meetup of the year on Monday. I hope you will be able to come to Nashville JUG on Monday, January 29 at 6:00 PM if you are in the neighborhood.

While waiting for that, check out my blog post from the JCP 25-year Anniversary Celebration.

Hashtag Jakarta EE #212

Welcome to issue number two hundred and twelve of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

As I mentioned in last week’s Hashtag Jakarta EE, there has been a change to the targeted Java version for Jakarta EE 11. In addition to supporting Java 21, the Jakarta EE Platform project is also planning to support Java 17 with Jakarta EE 11. While this may seem like a significant change, it turns out that it isn’t that dramatic. None of the component specifications were actually planning on exposing any Java 21 features in their APIs. The only one close to it was Jakarta Concurrency 3.1, with the planned support for Java Virtual Threads. But it turns out that careful API design allows for support if the underlying JVM supports it.

The biggest change is for the Test Compatibility Kit (TCK), which must be able to run on both Java 17 and Java 21. The implementations that had moved their code base to Java 21 are also affected to some degree depending on how far they have gotten and how many Java 17+ features they have started using.

To accommodate for the extra work involved, the Jakarta EE Project has adjusted the dates for milestones in the release plan. The goal of delivering Jakarta EE 11 in June/July 2024 still stands.

It’s been more than a month since I was at the airport. But that is about to change in a couple of days. I will participate in the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Java Community Process (JCP) in Mountain View on Thursday, January 25. After that, I will speak at three Java User Groups in three days. First up is Nashville JUG on Monday, January 29 followed by Seattle JUG on Tuesday, January 30, and Portland JUG on Wednesday, January 31. In addition to talking, The JCP anniversary will be properly celebrated in all the JUGs. Heather VanCura will join me in Seattle and Portland.

Jan 25: JCP 25-year Anniversary Celebration
Jan 29: Nashville JUG
Jan 30: Seattle JUG
Jan 31: Portland JUG (event soon to be published)

Hashtag Jakarta EE #211

Welcome to issue number two hundred and eleven of Hashtag Jakarta EE!

January is usually not a very busy month regarding conferences and events, and 2024 is no exception so far. It is not until the end of the month that I have something planned. But from there, the pace picks up significantly. I am going on a short trip to the US where I will participate in the celebration of 25 years of the Java Community Process (JCP). While there, I will also speak at several Java User Groups. So far, my schedule looks like this:

Jan 25: JCP 25-year Anniversary Celebration
Jan 29: Nashville JUG
Jan 30: Seattle JUG (soon to be published)
Jan 31: Portland JUG (planning in progress)
Feb 1: available

I am trying to get in touch with the San Diego JUG for an event on February 1, but without success so far. Please reach out to me If you are involved in this JUG, or another one within a couple of hours’ flight distance from the West Coast and able to host a meetup.

The major discussion within the Jakarta EE Platform project this week has been around Java SE versions. After the Jakarta EE Working Group Steering Committee passed a resolution stating the goal to target Java 21 with Jakarta EE 11, this has been the expectation set in the plan for the platform project. It now turns out that some of the vendors want to lower this requirement to Java 17. The discussions following this have been around how to handle this while delivering according to the timeline outlined in the release plan.

The important thing to note here is that even if we made it possible to certify an implementation for Jakarta EE 11 on Java 17, it will still be able to certify an implementation on Java 21. So for end users, the application developers, it would mean that you could use Java 21 features if the implementation selected supports it. I am sure there will be more on this topic in the following days. I will make sure to revisit it in the next Hashtag Jakarta EE. Stay tuned!